With The Wild Wolves Around You
by Yo Adrian
Summary: They are 50 miles from nowhere.


_Someday my pain, someday my pain_  
 _Will mark you_  
 _Harness your blame, harness your blame_  
 _And walk through_

 _The Wolves (Act I and II), Bon Iver_

* * *

They are fifty miles from nowhere.

Daphne's head rests against the window and she stares at her nails resting on her pink knee, because the scrubland slowly passing by became boring _hours_ ago. She stares at her nails, chipped and peeling, set in a calloused hand. When they roll into the next town — next ranch, next city, next _anything_ — she'll see if they have anywhere to get her chipped, peeling nails filed down to something neat and pretty.

Scratch that, she makes a list in her head. First, she'll find the laundromat, all their clothes are in a desperate need for a wash. Second, she'll take a shower in whatever dingy motel Fred has found —or hotel or ranch or _anything._ She'll feel clean for the first time in _weeks_. And then, third, she'll inquire about nail salons.

Her eyes drift over Velma's head—pouring over the map spread across her lap— to Fred, hunched over the wheel, eyebrows furrowed. She's known Fred longer than the others. He's been her best friend for so long, she can barely remember what it was like before him and she knows that look on his face. He's doing sums in his head, calculating how far they'll be able to stretch the last paycheck. Gas, repairs, food, motels, laundromats, food for Shaggy and Scooby. In that order, over and over again, until he's certain they'll survive until the next mystery.

If her parents knew she was living paycheck to meager paycheck, searching for coupons in the local paper just to put a little ease on the expenses, wearing a single dress for days until she can't bear the smell. If her parents knew, they would send Jenkins across the country just to sit her back at the long family table _where she belonged._

(It's disgraceful, her mother had cried. Daphne sat on the other end of that long, long table, her back straight and jaw set. She had felt brave that day, when she handed her stuffed suitcase to Fred and settled beside Velma in the van, her back still straight and jaw still set.)

She twists under her seatbelt and crosses her arms on the back of her seat. Their faithful dog is stretched across the back bench with his large head in Shaggy's lap, sleeping. Daphne smiles at Shaggy, nodding his head along to one of the tapes Fred plays during these long stretches of nothing. He waves at her, even though they are only a foot apart.

"Like, what's on your mind Daph?"

"Nothing important." He doesn't say anything, but she can tell he doesn't believe her. She sees it in the twitch of his thin mouth.

Daphne glances at Fred and Velma, who are both absorbed in their tasks, then back at Shaggy. "If we had never left," she asks quietly, "What would you do?"

He shrugs. "Work in, like, my pop's shop, I guess. Like, what about you,?"

She imagines that future. If she hadn't been brave. She sees herself sitting at the long table, her back aching through dinner, wealthy young suitors leering across at her. Velma and Fred across the States in college, Shaggy working as a mechanic, but still so far away.

She can feel that life choking her, sees herself at thirty, forty, fifty suffocating until she doesn't remember what it felt like to breathe.

"At home," she says vaguely.

(There isn't any use for a girl to go to college, her mother said, and gave her a look that she now knew meant _'girls like you anyway_ '.)

"Daphne," Shaggy starts to say, low and sad, like he can read her thoughts.

She turns back around in her seat before he can finish whatever silly encouraging words he has for her. She hears him sigh behind her and screws her eyes shut, feeling guilty and resentful.

She thinks about getting her nails buffed and polished, how good she will feel then, in her small oasis of basic beauty essentials. Maybe, if they have time, if they can spare it, she will get her toes done as well.

(I was just like you, when I was your age, her mother beams.)

* * *

 **a/n:** My little siblings and I used to watch those 70s Scooby-Doo reruns every Saturday and Sunday on Boomerang. I haven't watched it in years, but I felt very nostalgic about it when I heard the theme song the other day. Daphne was my favorite character.


End file.
